Under the Haihan system, the construction of the army was to serve the purpose of government, and the establishment of a large military region by the Haihan People's League to increase the scale of the establishment was also to make military preparations for the next expansion plan led by the Executive Committee. The truth in this can be thought of by anyone with a little political sensitivity, and Qian Tiandun, who is already a local official, is naturally no exception. However, because he is based in Annan and is limited by objective conditions, he is not so clear about the latest movements of the Executive Committee, so he should take the opportunity of reporting on his work this time to inquire about what the intended goals of the Executive Committee are, and make preparations as early as possible after returning home.

On April 2, 1630, the Luhuitou Peninsula militia army base. Although the Military Commission also has a large office space in Shengli Fort, with the increase of military personnel and affairs year by year, it has become more and more inconvenient to handle various daily affairs in Shengli Fort, and the military base on the east bank of Shengli Port is large enough, but it is necessary to cross the Tiandu River estuary by boat to enter and exit, and it is also more troublesome, so the military moved its main office to the Luhuitou Peninsula and set up a place with the army base.

Although it was during the anniversary holiday, these days were quite busy for the senior officers of the Central Military Commission, because it was only at this time of the year that the officers stationed abroad had time to return to Sanya to participate in high-level meetings within the military. Whether it is for military appropriation or personnel allocation, officers stationed abroad have to take advantage of the limited time of the few days to carry out activities.

"Eight hundred rifles? no, no, you are simply a lion's mouth!" Yan Chujie shook his head again and again, and rejected Qian Tiandun's request: "The Guangdong Military Region has reported that there are 500 rifles, but there is no sign of it!"

"How can the Guangdong side compare with me? The recruits on their side have not even seen anyone, but the recruits on my side are about to finish their training and start to be formed! No matter how anxious they are, they are not as anxious as I am!" Qian Tiandun argued with reason: "This gun should be assigned to our Annan Military Region first!"

"Colonel Qian, what you say is a bit of a strong argument!" Now that the name has already been called, Yu Yao, the representative of the Guangdong Military Region here, can no longer continue to pretend to be deaf and dumb, and responds: "The Annan side is very peaceful now, and there is no possibility of any major military action in the near future, and it will not be of much use to be in a hurry to arm the troops over there to the teeth?

Qian Tiandun would not be so lightly persuaded by Yu Yao, and immediately retorted: "It is still early for your side to form an army, and my side is a ready-made army, and it will be able to be pulled into the battlefield immediately when equipped with weapons, and if you want to protect the interests of the Haihan, I have a reorganized regiment here that can be mobilized at any time! Can the recruits on the Guangdong side be reliable? If you want to fight on the frontal battlefield, it is still up to us in the Annan Military Region!"

"Don't say it so much, the combat effectiveness of your troops in the Annan Military Region is good, but it is still suitable for fighting field battles and guerrillas, and group operations on the frontal battlefield have to be handed over to the regular army trained here in Sanya. When Gu Wei, the chief instructor of the militia regiment, heard this, he couldn't help but join the battlefield: "Not to mention anything else, just this tactic of artillery combined attack, it is estimated that the Annan garrison rarely practiced, and it was nothing to make a small fight, and when it went to the big battlefield, it could not cooperate well with the artillery unit, so how could the battle be fought?"

Because of the emphasis on field combat capability in a complex environment, the Annan militia army was not equipped with a large number of heavy artillery, and all of them were mainly light equipment, and the biggest drawback of this was that the local troops lacked the experience of combining operations with the artillery units, and the top level of the Central Military Commission was almost all fanatics who believed in the doctrine of large-scale bombing, and they were eager to use artillery to solve all battles. This shortcoming of the Annan militia army doomed them to be unlikely to take on the combat mission of the main frontal force in a large-scale battle.

"Okay, don't go too far off topic!" Seeing that the topic of discussion was skewed from rifle distribution to combat methods, Yan Chujie hurriedly opened his mouth to pull the topic back: "The quota for rifles and other munitions is not as much as you want! In the past two years, the militia army has expanded rapidly, but Tian Du's arsenal has not expanded so fast! At present, the total number of workers who manufacture guns and ammunition is less than 3,000, and they not only have to produce weapons and equipment for your three major military regions, but also sell them to the Ming Dynasty every year. The arms of Annam, Champong, and the Portuguese can't keep up!"

"If you can't keep up, you will increase the number of workers!" Qian Tiandun replied: "If 3,000 is not enough, it will be 4,000, and if 4,000 is not enough, it will be 5,000! Isn't Sanya now claiming to have 20,000 or 30,000 industrial workers?"

"Twenty or thirty thousand industrial workers are counting the laborers who work in the collective farms and in the port area. Yan Chujie shook his head helplessly and said: "Except for the people in administrative institutions, the rest of the naturalized people are basically classified as industrial workers. The growth rate of skilled workers required by the arsenal is still far from keeping up with the demand for production tasks, but the workers in this profession must master the processing technology, and the cycle required to train qualified workers is very long, and this problem cannot be solved in a short time. ”

The military leaders present stopped talking, Tian Du's arsenal couldn't be built, and it didn't make much sense for them to fight here. In fact, this problem is not without solutions, such as the construction of small arsenals in various garrisons, and the military regions themselves to solve some of the needs. However, no one dared to risk this big disapproval, because the Executive Committee had a very clear stipulation, that all hot weapons, including ammunition, could only be produced by the Tiandu Arsenal, and that the local garrisons could at most manufacture some cold weapons locally to arm the reservists.

This is also for security reasons, so that the Executive Committee does not lose control of overseas military leaders and allow them to develop into local warlords. And this bottom line is certainly not to be challenged, and anyone who does not know how to talk about it will be immediately transferred back to Victory Harbor for internal review. So even if they knew that the arsenal in the base camp was insufficient, the military could only pinch their noses and admit it.

"You don't have to fight about the rifle quota, the Military Commission already has a rough distribution plan, and every family has a share, but don't expect to get the number you applied for at one time. Yan Chujie decided to put an end to this topic and moved on to the next topic: "It has been three years since we arrived at this time, and the Executive Committee believes that our current situation is developing more smoothly than the projected five-year plan, so some external expansion plans can also be considered for early implementation......

As soon as everyone heard Yan Chujie's words, they immediately cheered up again. A large part of the reason why they chose to participate in the crossing was to be able to realize the dream of leading troops to fight and becoming a famous general, but after the end of the civil war in Annam in the first half of last year, the garrisons everywhere were put into storage, and there was no more fighting. Although military training, conscription, and expansion are still carried out in a step-by-step manner in peacetime, it is always a pity for these soldiers that there is no war.

They are very clear about the foreign policy of the Executive Committee, which is to seek self-preservation first and then expansion. Although the militia won a great victory in the civil war in Annam, it also exposed many problems, one of the most important of which was that the number of troops was too small to independently complete large-scale combat missions. Although the initial attack on Hue was relatively smooth, if there was no North Vietnamese army in the west to seal the passage of the South Vietnamese defenders out of the city, it would have been difficult for the militia to confidently and boldly concentrate their forces in the north to attack the city wall.

However, for the Haihan military, the strength of troops is not a problem that can be solved simply through conscription. First of all, the population under the rule of the Haihan was very limited, and in terms of the proportion of the population alone, the size of the Haihan army could already be described as exhaustive, and if the number of conscripts was further expanded, it would certainly affect social stability and the normal operation of other productive sectors that required young and strong labor.

Second, because of the popularization of hot weapons, the equipment and training costs of individual soldiers are far from being comparable to those of traditional armies, and the requirements for industrial production capacity are also very high. With Haihan's current strength, it is still difficult to maintain an oversized army for a long time.

For this reason, although the members of the Central Military Commission are well aware of the shortcomings of the militia groups, the expansion of the army is constrained by many objective conditions, and it is indeed impossible to rush it, and it can only be implemented step by step with the gradual growth of the overall strength of Haihan.

Now that we are halfway through the expansion, it is time to consider what to do next, given the time it will take to prepare. After all, if military action is to be taken again, it will have to start formulating a plan of action and conducting targeted military training at least a few months in advance.

Yan Chujie saw that everyone's attention had returned to him, so he continued: "At present, our control is not limited to Hainan Island, but also has a number of bases and ports overseas, but this also highlights the slow pace of our local expansion. Everyone, please look at the map!"

Yan Chujie stood up as he spoke, walked to the map of Hainan Island hanging on the wall, raised his hand and pointed to it and said: "At present, the areas we actually control on Hainan Island include Yazhou, Thanksgiving, Changhua, Lingshui, Wanzhou, Lehui and other places, and it can be said that about two-thirds of the coastline of Hainan Island has been returned to us. Although the official institutions of the Ming Dynasty in these places still exist, they basically exist in name only, and the local government affairs have been gradually taken over by our people. ”

Yan Chujie raised his arm and pointed to the northern tip of Hainan Island on the map and said: "At present, the areas that are still under the control of the Ming government are mainly concentrated in the north, including Danzhou, Lingao, Chengmai, Qiongzhou Fucheng, and Wenchang on the east coast, and our goal this year is to take the actual control of these places in the most peaceful way possible, and complete the full control of Hainan Island." ”

"Okay! I've been waiting for this day for a long time!" Gu Wei was the first to speak up and said: "After the unification of Hainan Island, there is no need to be so secretive in doing things in the future, and it is time for our Haihan banner to be played!"

However, not everyone is as excited as him, and the old and dignified Mu Xiabai asked out loud: "It's okay to say that the small county town is okay, but in a big city like Danzhou and Qiongzhou, the defenders may not retreat lightly, and if an armed conflict breaks out at that time, it will easily turn into a war between the Ming Dynasty and Haihan, if such a situation happens, then what does the executive committee plan?"

A large part of the reason why Haihan has not been in a hurry to expand the control area on Hainan Island is that the Executive Committee is unwilling to prematurely tear up the face with the Ming Dynasty over the territorial issue. The current Ming Dynasty can exert limited military pressure on Haihan, but it can add many obstacles to Haihan in terms of maritime trade and immigration affairs, which in turn affects the expansion speed of Haihan. Everyone understands this truth, which is why Mushabai asks this question.

Yan Chujie responded: "Regarding how to deal with the relationship with Daming, this question has indeed always existed, and it will continue to exist for a long time in the future." However, instead of using force to seize the territory that originally belonged to the Ming Dynasty, it was necessary to make a judgment based on the development of the form, and make a decision after weighing the pros and cons. ”

"So now the Executive Committee thinks that even if you use force to occupy the entire territory of Hainan Island, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages?" Mu Xiabai immediately understood the unfinished meaning of Yan Chujie's words.

Yan Chujie did not deny his point of view, nodded and said: "After a comprehensive weighing, the Executive Committee believes that our development has reached a bottleneck period, and the best way to quickly break through this bottleneck is to occupy the whole island as much as possible and establish our own political power!" As for the issue of trade and immigration, the situation is much better now than it was a year or two ago, and there are our agents and partners all over the coast of Guangdong and Guangxi, and these businessmen know very well who can give them more benefits between us and the Ming Dynasty. As long as there are enough interests, even if we enter a state of war with the Ming, these merchants will continue to do what they have to do. Of course, the premise is that we have to help them deal with those troublesome Daming Sailors in advance. ”

Yan Chujie said this, pointed to Wang Tom and said, "This matter is the task of your navy!"

Wang Tom whistled very easily: "This is not a problem at all, even if those two new ships are not used, relying on the existing warships can completely block the Qiongzhou Strait, and can be deployed in the waters from the Beibu Gulf and the Leizhou Peninsula to the mouth of the Pearl River." Even if the Ming Dynasty could gather a million troops in Guangdong, it would not be able to fly directly across the sea. ”

After three years of travel, this monster that has been dormant on the shores of the South China Sea is finally ready to show its sharp teeth and begin to conquer the world.